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Peace Keepers

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Peace Keepers
America’s Biggest Disservice to Her Peace Keepers
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13, KJV) In March of 2010, a survey was completed that totaled the number of active service members to 2,266,883; surprisingly the number of military personnel make up less than one percent of the United States total population. At this time, there had been 2.28 million military personnel that have deployed to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Since World War II, war casualties have significantly lowered to 4,453 killed and 32,129 wounded in comparison to the 405,399 killed and 671,846 wounded in World War II (1941-45). (Hurt, Ryan, & Straley, 2011) An interview conducted by an award-winning news broadcast, …show more content…
A Vietnam veteran named Clifford Wiggins stated, “I was physically and mentally able to defend my country and my men and I came back for what, to be medicated and pushed to the side. That’s just morally and unethically unjust.” Wiggins is a recovering alcoholic and tried to go the Veterans Administration (VA) to get help, but instead they pushed medication and never tried to address the real problem. Clifford Wiggins is not alone when it comes to having problems after separating from the military. (N.A., 2010)
Mental Illness
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), military sexual trauma (MST), if you follow the news outlets, or any veteran organizations you’ve heard of these terms at least once. There is at least 22 veterans that commit suicide a day. The armed forces have only just began to try to combat these problems with active duty service members and separated veterans. I can speak from experience when I say that there is a negative stigma in the military when it comes to mental illness. I have found that when someone asks for help, or even tells someone they are thinking about getting help, society then views that person negatively. People who are depressed, are now seen as
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